Trust and Distrust : Corruption in Office in Britain and its Empire, 1600-1850

Knights, Mark

Oxford University Press（2025/06発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 352 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780198820505
• DDC分類 345.4102323

Full Description

Trust and Distrust offers the first overview of Britain's history of corruption in office in the pre-modern era, 1600-1850, and as such will appeal not only to historians, but also to political and social scientists. Mark Knights paints a picture of the interaction of the domestic and imperial stories of corruption in office, showing how these stories were intertwined and related. Linking corruption in office to the domestic and imperial state has not been attempted before, and Knights does this by drawing on extensive interdisciplinary sources relating to the East India Company as well as other colonial officials in the Atlantic World and elsewhere in Britain's emerging empire.

Both 'corruption' and 'office' were concepts that were in evolution during the period 1600-1850 and underwent very significant but protracted change which this study charts and seeks to explain. The book makes innovative use of the concept of trust, which helped to shape office in ways that underlined principles of selflessness, disinterestedness, integrity, and accountability in officials.

Contents

1: Introduction
2: Indian Civil Servants
3: Conceptualising Office
4: Conceptualising Corruption
5: Trust, Standards of Public Office, and Corruption
6: Interest and Disinterestedness
7: Public Money, Public Accounts, and Accountability
8: Informal Accountability
9: Freedom of the Press and Anti-Corruption
10: The Politics of Anti-Corruption
11: Sale of Office
12: Gifts and Informal Profits of Office
13: Conclusion
14: Policy Implications